Cross Country
by SeductiveCurse
Summary: If there was one thing that Sango hated, it was traveling. However, when she bumps into a most charming stranger on the train ride home from her father's, she may decide to reconsider that statement. [MS] [One Shot]


**Disclaimer:** These really have no legal standing. So why bother?

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It was stupid, really, but Sango hated to travel. Planes, for example, she literally could not handle. The last time she had been on a plane, she had gotten so close to having a nervous breakdown that she began reciting all the places she had lived in, in order, to date. At the twelfth, she lost track and found herself making a bee-line for the bathroom in order to throw up without disturbing those sitting around her. 

At age twenty five, she could count the times she had traveled by plane on one hand - which was saying something seeing as she had moved halfway across Japan for college. She realized that she liked the new area so much that she stayed there, found a job, and settled for visiting her family at least once a year - usually during the summer - to keep in touch. Call it being a "daddy's girl", but she really liked seeing her father and younger brother and knowing that they were doing perfectly fine. It also was a time for her to meet up with some of her childhood friends and know that she hadn't lost all of her connections.

But because she hated flying, Sango had to find another way to get across the country. More often than not, she took the train. It was fast, efficient, gave her room to stretch her legs if she needed to and, most importantly, was not a plane.

This time, on the return trip, the train wasn't agreeing with her. She really should have thanked Kohaku for trying to make lunch for her, told Rin that her boyfriend was very much capable of cooking and then left without eating. It felt like a rock was sitting in her stomach.

Sango tried everything to ignore it: reading, sleeping, listening to music, but nothing worked. To make matters worse, there was an extremely loud couple in front of her and every time she came close to falling asleep, she was rudely awakened by one of them complaining about the seats being too close together and the service not being up to par. If Sango would have been feeling better, she probably would have lost her temper, told the two to shut up and then apologized to the attendants for having to put up with their behavior.

Well, at the moment, Sango felt that opening her mouth would result in her losing the contents of her stomach. She did not feel ready to have to deal with that and the uproar it would cause.

Having heard rumors of there being an observation car somewhere near the back of the train, Sango got up - a hand held against her stomach - to go look for it. The train was difficult to walk through as it rocked lightly on the tracks and through ever curve. That along with the fact that her legs felt like jelly made it difficult for the young woman to go anywhere at all.

"Excuse me," she murmured, brushing past a man around her age as she threw out an arm to balance herself against one of the vacant seats.

Instead, he caught her forearm and helped her stand straight until the train stopped rocking so violently. When convinced that she wasn't going to fall over, he flashed her an unbelievable smile and continued on his way, calling out, "Careful there, beautiful."

Sango blushed, bewildered. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him pass her vacant seat, the loud couple and leave the car possibly heading for the dining car.

_His hair is nice_, she told herself, convincing herself that it was, indeed, his hair that she had been looking at. Somewhat long and perhaps what one might call "roguish" if they were looking to sell a romance novel revolving around a thief and the strange love affair he had with the king's daughter, it was indeed nice.

Still not sure as to what exactly had happened, Sango continued through the train and found that, luckily for her, the observation car was only two or three cars back. Careful to not stumble on the narrow staircase, she proceeded to the top level where she actually would be able to see part of Japan's landscape as it rolled by.

Being able to sit back in an extra large chair and stare out the large window with nothing else to think about helped quite a bit, actually. Not having to listen to some idiots yammering on about how the chairs were too hard and a disgrace to the train system in general was a plus too.

Hardly anyone else was in the car aside from a woman who couldn't have been more than twenty nine with a small three-year-old girl that was playing with a toy pony around her mother's feet. The little girl kept glancing over at Sango and finally stopped to tug on her mother's skirt.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Rivka?"

The little girl stood and put a hand on her mother's shoulder before whispering loudly, "I want to go introduce myself to the pretty lady over there, but she looks sleepy and I don't want to disturb her."

"Do you think that you would be disturbing her?" her mother asked gently, watching as her daughter thought the answer over for a while. Finally shaking her head, Rivka meandered over towards Sango and tapped her arm shyly.

"My name is Rivka," she said, shifting her weight on the spot the way children do when feeling uncomfortable. Smiling disarmingly, Sango turned towards her.

"My name is Sango."

Laughing, the little girl covered her mouth with her hand. "That's my cat's name!"

"Really?" Sango asked. "I have a cat too. Her name is Kirara."

"That's a pretty name," Rivka said, absentmindedly pulling on Sango's hair and pretending that she knew how to braid it. "Is she a big cat?"

"No, she's very little."

Rivka nodded and began humming while twisting a lock of Sango's hair together and shifting her weight from foot to foot. Rivka's mother, seeing a potential hazard, approached and scooped up her daughter.

"Riv, leave the nice lady alone, alright?" she murmured. Her daughter nodded and settled for trying to braid the tail of her pony.

Sango watched the two from the corner of her eyes, a small smile on her lips. How adorable. She hoped that, one day, she might be lucky enough to have a little girl. If she was lucky, maybe her daughter would end up being like this little Rivka. That would be nice, she decided.

Eyes no longer focused on the details of the passing landscape, she began chuckling to herself. Maybe she would even name her daughter Rivka to cause confusion in her all-Japanese neighborhood.

Suddenly glancing at her watch, Sango was surprised to see how much time had passed since she entered the car and how quickly her upset stomach had completely left her. She stood, flashing one last smile at the little girl and her young mother, before carefully moving toward the stairs to await her stop at her seat.

She only made it down about three steps before she stopped, hearing the voice of someone on a cell phone that was moving up the same stairs that she was trying to descend. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone appear around the curve in the staircase, but, not thinking that seeing who it was would be important, she began to back up, eyes on the stairs to prevent any unfortunate accidents.

A voice stopped her, quite a nice one at that, and out of her peripheral vision, she saw a man waving his hand.

"No, no. Ladies first. I insist," he said gallantly, backing down the stairs to allow her to pass. Not sure what else to do, Sango started down the stairs again and, when she reached the bottom, found herself looking straight into a pair of lavender eyes that belonged to none other than the man that she had literally bumped into earlier.

Strange how, although she never would have been able to describe him to anyone based on their first encounter, she knew that it was him.

"Well, I must be a great gentleman or a helluva flirt," he commented as she walked by, unable to find anything to say herself. Seeing as she was at a loss for words, Sango was considerably surprised by the fact that she found herself laughing out loud only seconds after the words left his mouth.

It was... odd to put it lightly.

The young man did not seem to be surprised in her reaction in the least, or perhaps he hadn't even heard it, for he continued on with his conversation as if nothing had happened. Rivka's loud, happy voice could be heard floating down the stairs as she greeted the newcomer with just as much enthusiasm as Sango's greeting.

The magenta eyed woman returned to her seat in silence, thinking over the very recent events. It would be a lie to say that the train was large, but she was still fairly surprised to have run into the same man twice and in such a short time frame. She never really decided wether to believe in fate or not, but it was times like these that made her feel pretty confident that something was out there, having fun by putting her in awkward situations.

It was oddly enjoyable to think about in a strange, school girl-ish sort of way. Sango had never been one to really do a double take on anyone - not to say that she had never dated. Reflecting on someone, however, that she really didn't even know, simply was not in her character.

_That's it_, she decided at length, wanting to put all of her thoughts behind her and to get on with her life. _In the unlikely event that I'll see him again, I'll have to find something to say. To be polite._

She sat back, content in her decision. Meeting the same person twice was just coincidence. After all, there were only two directions to go in the train and she always would be in the middle of them. Three times, however, started to lean toward something beyond coincidence. What would be the odds of -

Sango froze, an already too familiar voice reaching her ears. Cell phone still attached to his head, the man that she had just been thinking about made his way down the aisle, running a hand carelessly through his hair.

Funny, Sango had the sudden urge to stand up and do the same, just to see what it would feel like.

It must have been the traveling getting to her at last.

He blinked, doing a double take in surprise and actually stopping in the middle of his sentence as he recognized the girl that he was passing for the third time. Sango found herself smiling at him before she even realized what she was doing, not even the traces of a blush on her cheeks. The man continued on, smiling back in reflex and apparently quite taken aback himself.

As soon as the man passed into the next car, Sango covered her face with her hands and tugged on her bangs in frustration. What had she been _thinking_ tempting fate like that? Anyone with half a brain cell knew that that was one of the unwritten "don'ts" of life. Really, what was so difficult to understand about never making promises involving the word "if", never changing answers on a multiple choice test and never, ever, tempting fate?

Maybe the meat that Kohaku had put in her little meal had been rancid and was now making her forget the simple facts of life. That would have been a reasonable explanation and would have made considerable more sense than saying that she had been living in Lala-land.

Well, Sango would never make the mistake of tempting fate again - although she would still try her brother's food if only to convince Rin that he wasn't going to accidentally poison her one day. All Sango could think of now was how lucky she was that she hadn't opened her mouth and said anything that would have convinced her lovely stranger that she was an idiot.

Now, judging from her laugh and the smile that probably resembled that of a sixteen year old on caffeine pills, she only gave him the luxury of _thinking_ that she was one.

She was still berating herself - apparently _not_ doing anything was just as bad as actually doing something - as the train approached her stop. Sango stood, swinging her shoulder bag up out of the chair beside her and moved into the aisle, rummaging overhead for her small suitcase. The train of thought that she had been on for a good fifteen minutes was thoroughly exhausted and she wanted nothing more than to return to her apartment and draw up a nice, hot bath.

Then she could make herself a leisurely meal, wander around in her bathrobe, hoping that her elderly neighbors across the courtyard wouldn't come banging on her door, insisting that she stop acting as though her apartment were a brothel, until settling down infront of the television with a good romantic drama.

Craning her neck to the side and standing on her toes, she tugged on her luggage to pull it down. Her eyes widened in surprise as it suddenly slipped over the metal guard rail due to the excess force she had put on it. She rolled off the balls of her feet and stepped back, balancing herself on the ground, to attempt to catch it before it came toppling down on someone's head.

That was odd. Her suitcase seemed to be defying gravity by not tumbling to the ground and also by losing weight.

Confused, she opened her eyes and looked up, half expecting to see that her suitcase had grown wings and was fluttering overhead, lightly balanced on her fingertips. Instead, she saw that she seemed to have grown a third, sinewy arm...

Sango looked to the side, all but jumping in surprise to see her black haired, lavender eyed gentleman holding up one end of the wayward carry-on. She began blinking, probably giving him the impression that she was part goldfish although she found herself wondering why the impression he had of her mattered so much, and searching for words as he carefully set it down.

"Thank you," she whispered at length while chastising herself for taking so long to come up with such a simple sentence.

He only smiled a smile that was so charming that it must have been outlawed in half of the country. Apparently her bewildered state was more appealing than anyone would have thought.

"Miroku Kobayashi," he said, extending his now free hand for her to shake.

Her cheeks turned bright red, just as they did with the Sango that everyone knew and loved as she tentatively shook hands with him. "Sango Nakamura."

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**Author's Corner:** Short and sweet. This story is actually based on something that happened to me when I was traveling across the country last Christmas to visit family. (No, my stranger was not a dashing man that I ended up going out with. I only bumped into him twice.) There actually was a little girl named Rivka that I saw on the train and I absolutely fell in love with her so I had to put her in the story. I decided to keep her named Rivka than say that she was Rin or someone else because I didn't want to distract from the main plot. Why did I make this into a short Sango/Miroku story? Because. 


End file.
